Website Research

What do I want in a website?

- Clear Structure

- Simplistic aesthetic - I want my work to speak for itself

- Easily navigated

The Dots

Jean Jullien

Kristyna Baczynski

Charlie Oscar Patterson

Supermundane/ Rob Lowe

Start Up Wednesdays

Start Up Wednesdays - 01.11.17

How to price and sell artwork

www.phill-hopkins.co.uk

How to sell your work (self)

A brief guide to the etiquette of the art world

Valuing a piece of art

There isnʼt a career path for an artist like there is for other jobs

No guarantee anyone will notice just because youʼve been to art school

Be your best/Be professional/Be yourself

Business card

What do I want it to say about me?/ How do I want to appear?/ Easy to buy

online/ Make your own (but not as a home-crafter)/ Tip: if youʼre given one,

e.g. at an art fair, make notes on the back…”this bloke is a pervert”/ Make

special ones to give to people you want to impress

CV

What do I want it to say about me?/ How do I want to appear?/ Up to date/

Easy to read/ Have different versions - one page, full with bio, third person/

PDF/ Paper copies/ Tip: spell check

Statement

What do I want it to say about me?/ How do I want to appear?/ Up to date/

PDF/ Paper copies/ Short (100 words)/ Long (500-800 words)

Website

So people can see your work/ Keep it updates, google likes change/ Mobile

friendly/ Can fb or Instagram work as a website/ Tip:: invest time in an

online presence

Buy a good camera

Buy a tripod

Take lots of pictures of your work that are in focus and well lit

Social Media

Where do I start?/ hard work to get right/ easy peasy to get wrong/ decide

whether to us in support of your practice or a personal account/ create a

narrative/ tip: invest time

Pricing work

Many artists price their work emotionally and inconsistently

Galleries/retailers canʼt sell wrongly priced work

Nothing will betray you like not knowing how to price your work

Many creatives mistakenly under-price their work because theyʼre no

established, their local art market wonʼt sustain higher prices, they lack

confidence in their work.

Must consider the cost of materials, time, size, research similar artists.

No magic formula, after working out a price, try it and see - raise it/lower it,

selling a number of works/in bulk

Selling

studio, gallery/retailer, online (auction)

Studio visits

What does your visitor want to see

A gallery/shop/studio, a private place where work is made/a combination

How long is the visit for

Always have prices in mind/never say I donʼt know (whilst making a stupid

face/have a written list, if it helps and give a copy/if you want to be taken

seriously, then be serious.

Approaching galleries/retailers - present a consistent body of work/have

sufficient work to sustain sales/deliver a portfolio in a format convenient to

review/confident and consistent pricing/approach the right galleries and

retailers/ submit through the right channels.

Approaching galleries/retailers

Galleries are shops, a business and need to make money

Donʼt hound

Be coy; galleries like to discover

Donʼt mistake an Instagram like as a secret message of love and wanting to

show your work

Be ready to answer questions; rehearse your script

Contracts

Employment/exhibiting/commissioning/selling any other work

Without a contract youʼre at risk

States your rights and what you can expect

Artists residencies/selling directly/contracts of sale/gifting artwork/selling

editions and series/authenticity certificates

5 basic good practices - hesitate, negotiate, rotate, indelibly communicate,

duplicate

Look up

BasementArtsProject

Saatchi Art

Artsy

curatroneq.com

www.thecontractstore.com

Experience

Recently I took on a commission to design a logo for an independent company, although it didn’t go the way I’d expected or hoped it to, it was a very valuable experience.

I was really excited about taking on this task, it was a little different to anything I’d done before, but something I thought my work would be well suited to. After all, a logo should be eye-catching and not over complicated! I think that actually sums up my approach to my practice fairly accurately. However this is not what the client wanted, they asked for quite a lot of different details to be included in this logo which I was more than happy to accommodate, so they’d have something that was unique to them and their company, whilst advising that all of the different elements may be too much. 

After finishing the logo, my client realised that there was too much detail and was more of an illustration than a logo. They asked for a lot of revisions, which effectively worked out to be a whole redesign of the logo. After informing them that their budget wouldn’t cover all of these changes, and adding an extra charge, they then decided they were unable to carry on with the commission. In my opinion I think the extra charge was fair and necessary. As a student it wasn’t a high charge but still showed that I value my time and work. I wouldn’t expect anyone else to value my work if I don’t value it myself. I need to learn how to price and sell my work professionally, so I’m confident in asking what I’m asking for without underselling myself.

It was a lot different to any of my other work, but because this was a commission I felt like I had to adapt my visual signature to something that it is not. I partly felt like this because the client asked me to do this brief based on a recommendation from a mutual friend, rather than looking at my work, then determining from there whether I’d be able to produce the logo they were looking for. In hindsight I think I should have just evaluated what they’d asked of me and showed them what I could offer looking for a compromise, rather than doing something completely different that didn’t feel was true to my practice. I think if I had stood my ground I’d have been able to produce a logo that was a lot more striking and that might have pleasantly surprised my client, offering an alternate perspective.

This was a really beneficial experience for me! I acted in a professional manner in what is potentially an awkward situation with a client. With this, I also managed to detach myself from my practice enough to try and complete the brief to a high standard, without feeling insulted when the client wasn’t happy. Although it didn’t work out well, I’m pleased I had the opportunity to experience this and handle this, whilst I’m still studying and while there wasn’t such a large amount of money at stake. 

Mission Statement

I find my most successful pieces of work are when I simplify an image and think of my compositions as a combination of different shapes, I enjoy incorporating different textures and pattern to give my work an extra dimension. I’m inspired by Saul Bass and Dutch design, as well as content which relates to where I grew up in Sunderland. Although I’m very content driven it is the process in which it takes to get to the end product which interests me. Most recently I’ve looked at more traditional print techniques and mixed media within my work, this is why I find it so difficult to work digitally, I enjoy the handmade quality with analogue materials. The use of shape is prominent in my work so I would like to explore how the simplicity of this may transfer to a repeat pattern, to be printed onto fabric.

Visiting UK Greetings

Upon my arrival I was met in reception by one of the Studio Directors, after a cup of tea, we then took a tour of the studios. The studios were divided by specific roles played within the company. The largest studio was for a team of general designers, which a small team of illustrators also resided within. It was interesting talking to a couple of the illustrators, they spoke about different ways in which they work from digital to traditional media. They all had sketchbooks used for initial ideas and things that may be used later on in a different brief. I also found out that their illustrations are then passed on to a designer to then be made into a product, I hadn’t realised prior to my visit that the illustrators wouldn’t solely take the lead on designing their products. I was also taken to see the studio which had teams for; character design, humour and Disney. As well as the studio for external brands I.e. Sainsbury’s, and the gift wrap and packaging studio. It was interesting to find that each greetings card produced go through a series of different designers and teams before reaching the end product that will be put on shelves to sell. As a perfectionist I think I would find this aspect of the industry quite difficult to adjust to, because it’s so different to how I’d usually work. Although this process could offer a great chance to collaborate with designers across the whole company. 

The feel of the professional working environment was really exciting, and inspiring. The studios were very open plan which gave a feel of community and even though there were Macs at every desk, there were still some artists painting. It was interesting to see how each designer take a different approach to their work. There are a number of ways to work for UK Greetings, freelancing appealed to me the most as I felt like this would offer the most freedom with the way I work. As a company, they select artists to freelance for them based on which projects are running at a specific time. No matter how good the artists work is, they can’t pay someone to freelance if they can’t find a use for their work, or don’t have a demand for what the artist is producing. This gave me some insight into how the industry works, as it all comes down to what the consumer wants and catering for the widest audience. 

During my portfolio review, it was encouraging to hear it was my character design that really interested the studio directors. This is an area I’m not very confident in, and feel needs improvement. This has given me the confidence to approach character design more often than I would usually. The studio directors also commented on my use of shape and colour, and could see my work transferring to wrapping paper, this is something I had already pondered and would be interested in trying. The experience of being in a creative environment made me think more about what I would like to do after my degree. On reflection, I think I would like to work in a studio with other creatives, so I can work around likeminded people and have the opportunity to get instant feedback. I think I would find this way of working motivating. 

Ella Barnes_502_SB1_Presentation

Ella Barnes_502_SB1_Presentation

Ella_Barnes_502_SB2_Creative Report

Unfortunately I was unable to get a response from Oliver Jeffers, however I still chose to write an article about him based on my research as his work is the main reason I became interested in Illustration.

Ella_Barnes_502_SB2_Creative Report

Ella_Barnes_502_SB3_Life's A Pitch

Presenting with a group was a lot less daunting than if I had to do it on my own! It was nice being able to bounce off what each other was saying, and felt supported by everyone in our collective.

Our collective celebrates 'girl power' and iconic successful women through creativity.

It was particularly interesting forming a collective with people across four different courses, we have illustrators, photographs, graphic designers and a fine artist, it w`s nice being able to see how we all approach similar topics within each of our disciplines.
                                                          Life's a Pitch - Presentation

Within our pitch, we proposed a quarterly zine, which would allow us the chance to showcase our recents works. It also gives us something to work towards throughout the year, even if not a lot is happening in terms of our practices.

I find I'm now able to ask more people for advice and criticism within my work, and will have a broader range of responses from completely different artists.

Life's a Pitch - Zine Proposal

After our proposed zine and Instagram account in our presentation, we made the Instagram account. It sticks to a colour theme as you can see whilst scrolling through each of the panels. This makes it feel like we are a collective, because our work exists right along side each other, the colour schemes are a major contributor to this.

Life's a Pitch - Instagram Account

T-shirt's/Hoodies

After already trying printing on fabric with my tote bags, I next wanted to apply one of my images to t-shirts.

This wasn't as simple as the tote bags. I wanted to try and print onto black t-shirts because this would benefit my print. However I didn't take into account how the pigments might show up on such a dark material. I was really disheartened by how they'd turned out at first. But as the white pigment was showing up better than the yellow, I realised I could print them onto of one another. The yellow was really vibrant with the white underneath. I just wish I'd thought about this before I'd exposed my screen, as I would have been able to do less layers of ink than I did in the end.

Plum Pudding Illustration Agency

Any interactive book - novelty 

Activity books

Picture Books

Other products

Puzzles

Plays - Set design

‘Hug in a box’ - Book and cuddly toy

Export of books

America and Europe are biggest markets

Trade Market

£1.99 - Value

>>>>> Quality mass market

£20.00 - Gift

All equally in demand

Value

Generic characters - bright bold - stickers books novelty

Quality/Mass market

Work into drawings a bit more and show off their signature style. Sweet/ cute - arty but safe

Trade/Gift

Artists are pushing boundaries - more labor intensive in the creating of the artwork.

The ins and outs of being a freelance illustrator

Freelance - freedom to fit work around family/other work

You need to be organised: plan ahead with payments

Work from home or share a studio?

Keep with the trends

Look up Kate Pankhurst

Trade Fairs

Bologna Children’s book fair

Frankfurter Buchmesse

Bookexpo America

Surtex

The London Book Fair

It’s important to pace your story well

• Average attention span of a 5 - 6 year old is ten to fifteen minutes
• Picture books: 32pp including end papers
• How do you make your story stand out?
• Clever composition: Don’t be afraid of white space
• More impact if you have a mixture of full colour, busy spreads followed bu a spot illustration cut to white.

Look up ‘Ella, Who?’ Illustrated by Sara Sanchez

What is the point in an agent?

• Find work, support, negotiate, give guidance, deal with the contracts and markets…
• Another platform for you and your illustrations to gain exposure
• Develop your work so it fits with the current markets

Developing Paula Bowles’ work

Originally quite muted colours, really sweet, quite traditional

At the minute the market is asking for more vibrant, bold, punchy colours

Have to adapt to the current market

Submitting your work

• 10-20 jpegs or pdf
• Research companies: The Writers’ And Artists’ Yearbook lists lots of publishers and agencies: check the submission guidelines on each companies website
• Consistency: Character studies - different poses/emotions
• Mixture of children and animals
• Mixture of full full and spot arts
• Keep different styles separate 
• When working digitally always 300dpi and CMYK

Look up Mar Ferrero

Look up Xavier Bonet

Netflix: 'Abstract' - Ep.1

'Christoph Niemann: Illustration'

• Finding the balance of abstraction 

• Separation between real life and work life
• Working under deadline - tricky clients 

The New Yorker - May 16, 2016

• Juggling - One ball in the air at any one time - sense of feeling out of control - that's when you have the best ideas though, when you let go a little.
• Not just image making - Animation angle
• Be a ruthless editor and a careless artist
• Coffee cup mark making 
• Saying the same thing in new ways

Lecture

Leeds College of Art

Introduction to Presentation Skills

1st March 2017 /// Rick Ferguson

• Behaviour
• Structure
• Content

Why do I want to become better at this?

• Development of communication skills - A better understanding of me and other people, which could develop different partnerships and collaborations
• Better job opportunities 
• Gain confidence in myself and have more confidence presenting my work and ideas

Albert Mehribian’s communication model on the relative importance of the different ways in which we communicate 

• The way we say the words - 38%
• Non-verbal behaviour (Body Language) - 55%
• The words we use - 7%

(%) Relative impact of how we communicate 

Behaviour 

Speed - can vary, choose when you want to speed up slightly, and slow down slightly 

Volume - can also vary, but the main consideration is that you can be heard! 

Pitch - decide where to vary the pitch, to pose a question or to emphasise words

Avoid crutch words - (so, okay, right then, moving on, um, err..)

Appropriate eye contact (could split the room into quarters, and randomly make eye contact within the quarters)

Awareness of unconscious ‘tic’s’/movements. Be aware of gestures

Structure

Bookending (Mentioning something at the start of your presentation and returning to out at the end.)

Power of Three (We only tend to be able to remember 3 main things - any more than this and our brain had difficulty coping) - Intro (including one bookend)/ First Section/ Second Section/ Third Section/ Conclusion (including bookend 2)

Content

How to decide what kind of content I might include? (And what content I might want to avoid)

• Head (where?/ what?/ how?)
• Heart (why?/ who?/ who else?)

6 Logical Levels 

(Head) > Environment 

> Behaviour

> Capabilities and Skills

> Beliefs and Values

> Identity

(Heart) > Mission/Vision 

TASK

Prepare and practice a short (1.5 - 2.5 minutes long) presentation about you

• How you will behave when delivery it
• How you will structure it
• How you will decide what content to include

Colours May Vary talk

• They stock things they'd want themselves
• The fact it's a creative hub helps the to make connections
• Colours May Vary links to the fact you don't know what you'll find when you go into the shop
• What sells? Magic pencils - they're cheap and fun
• A range of prices is good!
• You need to know what people will spend in a city as opposed to a quiet town, and how much you can charge for what it is. 
• Your product must be have strong design as well as application. The combination of design, colour, craft and process is the most important.
• Do editions! People like the fact they're buying an edition of a print/zine etc.

How to be a stockist?

• Email/bring it in
• Concept 
• Process
• How you present yourself and your work

Leeds Comic and Film Fair

This was... interesting... and really not what any of us were expecting, I don't think. It was nice being among my peers with each of our different stalls. But I don't think the clientele were what we expected. We were situated outside of the event, so quite a few people wandered around the stalls LCA had, but it was quite obvious that we weren't why they were there. Nevertheless, it was fun doing this with friends and gaining the experience of it. It has definitely still encouraged me to do more art fairs in the future, and I look forward to them.

Business Cards

I took this cat design from a previous lino cut I made, I felt it was bold, simple and eye catching.

When printing my tote bags, I felt it was also appropriate to print some business cards. I played around with the lino print I made, and a minimal colour pallet. It was important for me to make sure it was eye catching, and after several experiments, I found the white behind the lino makes it stand out the most. I also wanted to play around with the layer on photoshop by misaligning the different shapes, I was able to create some lovely overlapping. In the end, I screen printed my cards, as it was a  cheap and reasonably quick way of producing a lot in a small space of time. Screen printing them also allowed me to gain some lovely textures within the white circle.

Tote Bags

I took a lino print from my 504 module and thought it'd translate well on a tote bag. After looking into how to lino print onto fabric, for the size I planned on printing and the time I had available to do it, it was impractical. I then thought about just using the positives from my lino prints, to screen print  Which also meant I could make separate layers allowing me to use more than one colour.

Screen printing the tote bags, I found was actually quite simple. It was a bit tricky getting used to marking out the position of the screen for each tote bag and remembering to do 4 pulls instead of 1 or 2. But other than that, I found it easier than screen printing onto paper. 

I'm really happy with how they turned out, I think they were even more successful than my prints of the same lino for 504. To compliment the canvas material of the tote bag, I decided to print using a pale pink and navy blue. I felt printing with black ink would be too harsh a contrast.